II Peter 3:8

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Holy Books were never meant to be used as an exact historical timeline... ;)

hmmm.... this is tough...more concise.

well, it seems that all pursuits, philosophy, science, and religion make an attempt at defining ethics. How can we say it belongs to any one of them but not the others?

Religion decides it's ethical to mutilate babies with circumcision, or young girls in the case of African countries. If religion eventually lets up on that, then there's scores of other repressive measures they take claiming them to be 'ethical'. Or that it's ethical to smite the neck of the enemy in the name of the lord, because they are unbelievers. So it's OK to kill them.

Philosophy, which is the development of intellect before science can be done from out of it, defines and develops ethics as....how? Explain to us.

Science can develop ethics itself, if it follows its findings and what the findings imply. We find experimentation causes pain, we try a different experiment that won't, or we minimize the pain if the experiment must be done. We do this for a good scientific reason: minimize confounding variables. An animal in pain doesn't react the same way one without pain would react. If the pain has no relation at all to what we are observing, then we should still minimize pain for the simple reason that most people are uncomfortable with it, and might demand experiments stop. These are all simple IF THEN relations to me. I don't see where philosophy comes into play in this regard.

Although I ams ure that philosophy can come up with the best arguments of all for developping ethics and for being ethical to everyone.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Your holy books were indeed meant to be used as an exact historical timeline, for timelines are found in several places. Don't you remember your list of 'begats'? Ages of men are mentionned in several places, too.

You can't bull your way out of this one jeffrey.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

hmmm.... this is tough...more concise.

well, it seems that all pursuits, philosophy, science, and religion make an attempt at defining ethics. How can we say it belongs to any one of them but not the others?

Religion decides it's ethical to mutilate babies with circumcision, or young girls in the case of African countries. If religion eventually lets up on that, then there's scores of other repressive measures they take claiming them to be 'ethical'. Or that it's ethical to smite the neck of the enemy in the name of the lord, because they are unbelievers. So it's OK to kill them.

Philosophy, which is the development of intellect before science can be done from out of it, defines and develops ethics as....how? Explain to us.

Science can develop ethics itself, if it follows its findings and what the findings imply. We find experimentation causes pain, we try a different experiment that won't, or we minimize the pain if the experiment must be done. We do this for a good scientific reason: minimize confounding variables. An animal in pain doesn't react the same way one without pain would react. If the pain has no relation at all to what we are observing, then we should still minimize pain for the simple reason that most people are uncomfortable with it, and might demand experiments stop. These are all simple IF THEN relations to me. I don't see where philosophy comes into play in this regard.

Although I ams ure that philosophy can come up with the best arguments of all for developping ethics and for being ethical to everyone.

I'm going to be exceptionally clear with you, Chuck. I'm going to state my point so bluntly that anyone can understand it....

Ethics is a branch of philosophy.

The ethics some scientists use or appeal to in their research appeals to this branch of philosophy.

There are 5 branches of philosophy and here they are as follows:

1. Metaphysics
2. Epistemology
3. Ethics
4. Politics
5. Esthetics

Start with number '1' and work your way down....

Scientists, like all men, must have some understanding of philosophy; It's either implicit or explicit. A plumber or garbage man has a philosophy too, whether or not he's aware of it. This is why philosophy qua philosophy is crucial to man's identity and ability to exist.

You seem to be confusing what certain SCIENTISTS do with 'Science' itself. There is no 'science' without the humans 'doing it'. It's not a mystical concept floating in a vacuum or inside of God's mysterious mind. It's a methodology, not an idealogy. Science is an application of order #2 listed above, epistemology. It begins with an understanding of #1, metaphysics. It cannot ever ever ever lead to #3, ethics. That is the sole realm of philosophy, which science cannot measure, put into a test tube, calculate, weigh, shine photons on, or whatever else. This is an intellectual science that is unique to human beings. A given scientist DOES have an ethical standard he should be held accountable to particular to his given field of enquiry but himself is not necessarily an ethicist. That is the role of the thinker....of the philosopher. Philosophy tells the scientists where to go. It doesn't work the other way around......

Carts don't command horses, horses pull carts. And since I've subsumed 'ethics' as a branch of philosophy then the logic here is undeniably sound and quite perfect.

Discussions of religonists or other irrational philosophers notwhithstanding in their ability to Reason.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

II Peter 3:8

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Holy Books were never meant to be used as an exact historical timeline... ;)

---

Account frozen...

II Peter 3:8

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Holy Books were never meant to be used as an exact historical timeline... ;)

ROTLMAO.....

You're killing me,....killing me here! LOL

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Do you folks EVER come up with new material? ;)

I Corinthians 2:14

The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Now we know... ;)

Do you folks EVER come up with new material? ;)

No...we don't....

Have you ever been mistaken for a rational man?

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I Corinthians 2:14

The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Now we know... ;)

Do you folks EVER come up with new material?

Why should we, you never do...

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Account frozen...

Oh, wait...I forgot to put a winky smiley on the end of my post to make it all 'A-OK'.

;-)

Dogbytes, I got modded for posting that same pic...lol

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Do you folks EVER come up with new material? ;)

Well you've got to admit that most of what they say is less than 2,000 years old. Can you say the same?

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Reality Internet Personality

Do you folks EVER come up with new material? ;)

Well you've got to admit that most of what they say is less than 2,000 years old. Can you say the same?

Yep.....My specific philosophic tradition goes back over 2,000 years. It dates to Aristotle. There is no Objectivism without Aristotle. He predates Christ.

Regardless...it's moot. Age of an idea is no measure of its validity.

---

Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Do you folks EVER come up with new material? ;)

Well you've got to admit that most of what they say is less than 2,000 years old. Can you say the same?

Yep.....My specific philosophic tradition goes back over 2,000 years. It dates to Aristotle. There is no Objectivism without Aristotle. He predates Christ.

Regardless...it's moot. Age of an idea is no measure of its validity.

Most modern philosophies have their roots thousands of years ago, however most people will build on and expand such ideas and disregard those that have proven to be false or just not applicable to today's world. Jeffrey seems to have stopped thinking at least 2,000 years ago.

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Reality Internet Personality

hmmm.... this is tough...more concise.

well, it seems that all pursuits, philosophy, science, and religion make an attempt at defining ethics. How can we say it belongs to any one of them but not the others?

Religion decides it's ethical to mutilate babies with circumcision, or young girls in the case of African countries. If religion eventually lets up on that, then there's scores of other repressive measures they take claiming them to be 'ethical'. Or that it's ethical to smite the neck of the enemy in the name of the lord, because they are unbelievers. So it's OK to kill them.

Philosophy, which is the development of intellect before science can be done from out of it, defines and develops ethics as....how? Explain to us.

Science can develop ethics itself, if it follows its findings and what the findings imply. We find experimentation causes pain, we try a different experiment that won't, or we minimize the pain if the experiment must be done. We do this for a good scientific reason: minimize confounding variables. An animal in pain doesn't react the same way one without pain would react. If the pain has no relation at all to what we are observing, then we should still minimize pain for the simple reason that most people are uncomfortable with it, and might demand experiments stop. These are all simple IF THEN relations to me. I don't see where philosophy comes into play in this regard.

Although I ams ure that philosophy can come up with the best arguments of all for developping ethics and for being ethical to everyone.

I'm going to be exceptionally clear with you, Chuck. I'm going to state my point so bluntly that anyone can understand it....

Ethics is a branch of philosophy.

The ethics some scientists use or appeal to in their research appeals to this branch of philosophy.

There are 5 branches of philosophy and here they are as follows:

1. Metaphysics
2. Epistemology
3. Ethics
4. Politics
5. Esthetics

Start with number '1' and work your way down....

Scientists, like all men, must have some understanding of philosophy; It's either implicit or explicit. A plumber or garbage man has a philosophy too, whether or not he's aware of it. This is why philosophy qua philosophy is crucial to man's identity and ability to exist.

You seem to be confusing what certain SCIENTISTS do with 'Science' itself. There is no 'science' without the humans 'doing it'. It's not a mystical concept floating in a vacuum or inside of God's mysterious mind. It's a methodology, not an idealogy. Science is an application of order #2 listed above, epistemology. It begins with an understanding of #1, metaphysics. It cannot ever ever ever lead to #3, ethics. That is the sole realm of philosophy, which science cannot measure, put into a test tube, calculate, weigh, shine photons on, or whatever else. This is an intellectual science that is unique to human beings. A given scientist DOES have an ethical standard he should be held accountable to particular to his given field of enquiry but himself is not necessarily an ethicist. That is the role of the thinker....of the philosopher. Philosophy tells the scientists where to go. It doesn't work the other way around......

Carts don't command horses, horses pull carts. And since I've subsumed 'ethics' as a branch of philosophy then the logic here is undeniably sound and quite perfect.

Discussions of religonists or other irrational philosophers notwhithstanding in their ability to Reason.

I just want to add one bit to this to illustrate why ethics (in the philosophic sense) is different from a code of ethics (which is entirely a social construction).

Sciences attempt to describe reality in, to the extent possible, universal terms. We do not have a Theory Of Gravitation For Salt Shakers Accidentally Knocked From Cafe Tables In The South Of London. We have a Thoery of Gravitation (since subsumed into the General Theory of Relativity). This Theory of Gravitation, provided with the parameters of an accidental bump to a salt shaker on a table at a cafe in the south of London, should predict what will happen quite nicely. In a similar vein, a "scientific" explanation of ethics does not depend upon the specific society surrounding the action; it should apply equally to a deserted island or 1869 Reconstruction Georgia or on the seventh floor of the UN headquarters building last week. Predicting the actual reactions of real people in a real society is a question of psychology (which is an application of #2 epistemology).

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Jeffrey seems to have stopped thinking at least 2,000 years ago.

So you think God should raise someone from the dead once a month just to remind people of what happened 2,000 years ago?

It's not Gods fault people have lost their capacity to remember from day to day let alone month to month, year to year, or century to century...

I have yet to see anything proven false in my Holy Books by any means other than meaningless rhetoric by people who either don't believe them or don't understand them... ;)

well, than I fail to understand how "Don't do a or b will happen to you" is the purview entirely of philosophy?!?

I am sure that it was philosophy which had originally invented ethics. However, since science is a refinement of philosophy, in that it goes on to provide concrete [u]proof[/i] by experimentation, aren't we just splitting hairs here? Any way, science exists as the concept of proving your theory through experimentation, and in NOT resorting to authority for an answer.

Having never specialized in philosophy at all, I would like a demonstration of how ethics are purely philosophical in nature? Also, it might help my understanding if you can show how the (way) above is in error?

(This is so much more interesting than religious crap, isn't it!)

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

I have yet to see anything proven false in my Holy Books by any means other than meaningless rhetoric by people who either don't believe them or don't understand them...

Dude, go back and reread everything we said in "How did they Knooooow, 1400 years ago in the koran?!?!? ;-> :-[ :-8"

Your tenets were proven FALSE. Again and again and again. Go read all these examples of how your bible was WRONG over and over:http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0101/answers.html

But I guess you'll just ignore that too, jeffrey. Like you've been ignoring "Oasis in Space" that YOU ASKED for?

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Any way, science exists as the concept of proving your theory through experimentation, and in NOT resorting to authority for an answer.

We all know how much some hate even the thought of the existence of someone or something which is much greater than 'thy almighty self'...

God calls that 'pride' and 'arrogance'... ;)